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A2 Hood River News, Wednesday, February 18, 2015 G REATER G ORGE www.hoodrivernews.com Gorge Commission, Klickitat County sign pact By NEITA CECIL The Dalles Chronicle In a historic agreement — nearly 18 months in the mak- ing — Klickitat County will de- vote planning staff time to help the Columbia River Gorge Commission process land use applications within its bor- ders. A Klickitat County planner will spend at least one day a week at the commission’s White Salmon office to process applications, and devote more time to applications at the county’s Goldendale planning office, Klickitat County Com- missioner Dave Sauter told the commission at its meeting Tuesday in The Dalles. “We have seen the impact of the (commission) staffing lev- els as they exist now and their ability to process the permits,” Sauter said. There are actually “significant impacts to eco- nomic development” in the county, he said. “This doesn’t solve every- thing, it is a first step,” he said. To get a sense of how much of a shift in thinking this is for Klickitat County, Sauter quipped that everybody would know when the agreement had been signed later that day by the county due to the sight of the “mushroom cloud over Goldendale.” Klickitat County has long maintained the most resis- tance of the six Gorge counties to the scenic area land use reg- ulations. It is the only county to not adopt its own rules for developments in the federally- protected Gorge corridor. Con- sequently, land use applica- tions within the scenic area in Klickitat County have been handled by the Gorge Commis- sion. The commission started ex- periencing deep staffing cuts in 2009, eventually dropping from 4.5 planners to 1.6, but the recession also slowed applica- tions to a trickle. Even so, by 2013, there was a year-long backlog for getting permits. The recession ended and the applications started to flow again, but staffing hasn’t in- creased. The wait time has crept up to about 18 months, and the amount of applications has grown significantly, from about 12 in the queue in Sep- tember 2013, to 37 today, Gorge Commission Executive Direc- tor Darren Nichols said. Gorge Commissioner Bowen Blair, an Oregon gover- nor appointee from Portland, Photo by Mark Gibson COWS IN DALLESPORT express curiosity about the presence of a photographer. The land on which they graze lies in Klickitat County where officials have agreed to help process Columbia Gorge Na- tional Scenic Area land-use applications in an historic agreement. said of Klickitat County’s deci- son, “I think it’s a real step for- ward.” He hoped more changes were coming. At earlier meetings, Sauter has cautioned hopeful Gorge Commissioners to not expect the next step to be Klickitat County adopting its own land use rules. He said that possibil- ity was very much off the table. Sauter told the Chronicle he expects up to half of Klickitat planners’ time to be spent on the permit backlog. He under- stands there is some flexibility on which permits will be tack- led and in what order. One concer n has been whether the easiest ones would be done first, or the old- est ones. He understands it will be a mix. Commissioner Dan Erick- sen, an Oregon governor ap- pointee from The Dalles, and a former Wasco County commis- sioner, said he understood the trials Sauter was going through by shepherding a po- litically divisive agreement through. Sauter acknowledged the challenges he faced, saying, “This is not without cost.” Gorge Commissioner Carl McNew, representing Klickitat County, said the agreement would not have happened with- out Sauter. “I can’t thank you enough. It’s a big deal.” Then Commissioner Jim Middaugh, a Multnomah County appointee from Port- land, lightened the mood by saying that, as a liberal mem- ber of the commission, “I’m tempted to vote no to help you out politically, but I’m going to vote yes.” The Gorge Commission first approached Klickitat County in September 2013, asking for help to process land use appli- cations. It asked for a full-time county planner to work on per- mits. Negotiations hit some snags. A June 2014 letter from the Klickitat County planning department said having one of its staff work out of the com- mission office — which is what the just-signed agreement calls for — would be “impractical.” Sauter told the commission, “Sometimes, in seemingly in- tractable situations you can see forward consensus.” Another issue was the coun- ty planner’s access to confiden- tial information in the com- mission office. The agreement states the planner will keep that information confidential. Klickitat County felt that was “kind of a given to us, but they wanted some assurance,” Sauter said. Planners work with confi- dential information all the time, he said. Sauter said the county at this point expects its planner to work up to half-time on the backlog “until we get caught up.” Only once the work is start- ed, however, will the needed re- sources be known, he said. The agreement calls for monthly and quarterly updates on progress. Sauter said the county’s se- nior planner was ready to start working right away at the com- mission office one day a week. Columbia Gorge gluten free baker uses chemistry background By AMBER MARRA The Enterprise Photo by Amber Marra TERESA LANGEN has struggled with wheat intolerance for years and is opening a bakery in Bingen that will provide gluten-free good- ies to those with similar intolerances and allergies. Columbia Gorge Gluten Free will offer wholesale and eventually retail orders of pies, muffins, cookies, and more out of its new location, but Langen’s gluten-free muffins are currently available at Doppio in Hood River. At the age of 17, Teresa Lan- gen received some devastating news regarding her favorite hobby. The prognosis was wheat in- tolerance. Langen, an avid baker, tried to ignore the fa- tigue and discomfort she expe- rienced when she ingested wheat for a few years, but fi- nally came to terms with it shortly after moving to the area in 2000. “At the time there wasn’t much going on in the gluten- free market and I’ve always loved to bake, so I was really sad because nothing bakes like wheat bakes,” she said. The denial of something she loved so much led her to pur- sue baking sans-wheat. Her pies, muffins, breads, and other tasty creations will soon be available for wholesale at the new Bingen location of Co- lumbia Gorge Gluten Free. “Wheat is very common for people to be allergic to, so I think it’s something that’s here to stay and if you can make things taste really good people don’t mind buying it and eating it instead of their typical gluten-type products,” Langen said. Located in what was previ- ously Big River Diner and Big T’s, Columbia Gorge Gluten Free is set for a soft opening in March with wholesale and re- tail online orders available at www.columbiagorgeglutenfre e.com beginning in April. This isn’t Langen’s first business venture. Her other business, Bio-Creations, pro- duces a line of soaps, candles, and cosmetics and she works with the company her hus- band founded, EZkem, as well. Through it all, Langen’s background in chemistry and biology has helped. Prior to moving to the Gorge, jobs in quality assurance in the food industry paved the way for suc- cessfully putting together gluten-free goodies. “Baking is a science. It all has to do with chemistry and the way foods interact with each other and baking, proba- bly more than other cooking, is really affected by the way things react, so understanding chemical reactions and acids and bases has helped me to un- derstand baking and when something doesn’t work out to be able to analyze why,” Lan- gen said. That said, Langen recog- nizes the challenge of her busi- ness in that it lacks “the thing that is best for baking, which is BNSF plans to spend $189 million on Washington railways this year By SVERRE BAKKE The Enterprise BNSF Railway Company an- nounced last Friday that it plans to spend about $189 mil- lion this year on capital im- provements and system main- tenance in Washington. Right now, traveling mecha- nized crews of 200 personnel and equipment are replacing rail and surfacing track on the 220-mile Columbia Gorge main line between Bingen and Wishram, on their way to BNSF facilities in Pasco. “These are high-production crews that perform track sur- facing to ensure a proper align- ment, and to ensure the track is raised to the proper level for that geometry,” BNSF’s spokesman, Gus Melonas, told The Enterprise. The Columbia Gorge main line has been in operation since 1908, and plays “a key role in moving local, national, and international freight,” Melonas said. “A critical com- ponent of that is a strong track structure.” This spring, tie crews will make their way along the main line, replacing ties and adding ballast to hold the track in Mortgage Advice 5¢ place. Finally, crews will come in to perform undercutting work to clear stray rock and give the rail bed its proper trim to enhance water drainage. “We invest in this kind of maintenance work to keep our trains safe and running at the optimum speeds set for us by the federal government and by BNSF to meet our engineering standards,” Melonas noted. BNSF has spent $500 million in Washington in the past three years to keep its more than 2,000 miles of track here in tip-top condition. But the Columbia Gorge line is a point of emphasis for the company. “We’re investing in this line to ensure the safe, reliable, and efficient movement of freight from A to Z that moves through the corridor,” Mel- onas said, and added, “We’re a common carrier, so we don’t control what we haul. But we do control how we haul it.” The company’s Columbia River Gorge line runs directly along the southern edges of Klickitat and Skamania coun- ties. The route is one of the busiest in the Northwest; 35 to 40 trains a day carry all sorts of cargo, from fuels like crude oil Need N eed some Mortgage Advice? ce? Call Jef Jeff eff f ff from North Dakota to coal from Wyoming, to consumer goods like lumber and vehi- cles, to Washington agricultur- al products. Amtrak also runs two trains a day between Port- land and Chicago. “This year’s substantial in- vestments in Washington are a clear reflection of how im- portant our operations in the state are to our overall net- work and our unwavering commitment to always oper- ate safely, for people and the communities in which we op- erate,” said Daryl Ness, BNSF’s general manager of operations, Northwest Divi- sion. “We know our customers are competing in a fast-paced global economy where a smooth, efficient supply chain can be the difference between winning and losing in the marketplace.” Ness said this year’s planned expansion and main- Happy Birthday Sis!! 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Moreover, the company is trying to be conscientious about rail safety in response to growing public concern about the wisdom of traffick- ing crude oil and coal through the Gorge and the communi- ties that line BNSF’s main track. BNSF’s maintenance pro- gram for Washington will in- clude 1,011 miles of track sur- facing and undercutting work, and the replacement of nearly 50 miles of rail and about 203,000 ties, as well as signal upgrades for federally man- dated positive train control, a system of functional require- ments for monitoring and con- trolling train movements as an attempt to provide in- creased safety. to the 80’s gluten,” leading her to use white rice flour, potato flour, and tapioca starch in every- thing from her pie crusts to red velvet muffins with cream cheese icing. While she recognizes that finding gluten-free options on restaurant menus and in gro- cery stores has gotten easier over the years, Langen said she also knows how difficult it can be to make gluten-free baked goods at home. “The difficult part is that gluten-free baking requires you to have a lot of ingredi- ents. You don’t just buy a bag of flour like you do when you’re making regular muffins. You have three or four different flours that go into the mix, so having the space to store every- thing is difficult if you’re bak- ing for yourself,” she said. Sourcing as many of those ingredients as possible from the Gorge is important to Lan- gen. Her chickens provide her with eggs and orchards throughout the Gorge will give her the apples or other fruit Queen Size Mattress Sets Starting at 249 $ MURRAY’S FURNITURE & SLEEP CENTER 981 Tucker Road • Hood River (541) 386-3915 that fill her tarts. “My intent is to use as many local ingredients as I can, which is also getting easier. You can get everything from eggs to honey here. You can’t get rice flour, but you can get all the good stuff that goes in the pie or muffin,” Langen said. Eventually, Langen would like Columbia Gorge Gluten Free to be certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but that process takes time and there is still a lot of work to be done to her new facility, which will be 100-percent gluten free with no potential for contami- nation since she will be the only one baking there. “I’m hoping to bring some good alternatives to wheat in the baking world and maybe give more people a chance to try it and see if they feel better if they go on a wheat-free or gluten-free diet,” she said. Gas Appliances Electrical Repair Get your RV road ready! RV Doc — Bruce Henderson Mobile Service & Repair State Fire Marshal Certification #001242-08 Service & Repair. I come to you! 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